Austin's Highest-Grossing Bars in June 2026: $119.8 Million in Receipts, and the Real #1 Isn't Even a Bar

Austin-area bars, restaurants, and venues reported $119.8 million in mixed-beverage receipts in June 2026 — the most recent month the Texas Comptroller's filings fully cover — across 2,015 reporting locations. According to ATX Things analysis of the state's own naix-2893 dataset, the single highest-grossing spot in Austin, Texas wasn't a bar at all, and the actual top bar isn't on 6th Street or Rainey.

What's Austin's highest-grossing bar right now?

Every bar, restaurant, hotel, and venue in Texas that sells liquor by the drink has to report gross receipts to the Comptroller's office monthly, broken out by liquor, wine, beer, and cover charges. That makes the state's mixed-beverage tax data — dataset naix-2893 — the closest thing to a real revenue leaderboard for Austin nightlife that exists anywhere, ours included. June 2026 is the newest month with a complete, stable set of filings; July's numbers are still trickling in.

Filtered to the Austin metro (Travis, Williamson, and Hays counties) and limited to venues that are still actively reporting, 2,015 locations posted a combined $119,782,519 in June. Here's who actually topped it:

Texas Comptroller mixed-beverage receipts, June 2026 — one month only, not a lifetime total.

Look closely at that top 10 and the pattern is immediate: six of the ten spots are a resort, two hotels, and an arena — not a stand-alone bar. Kalahari's indoor waterpark resort in Round Rock ($1.43M) edged out downtown's JW Marriott ($1.28M) for the single biggest mixed-beverage check in the entire metro, and neither one is what most locals picture when they hear "Austin's highest-grossing bar." Combined, those six institutional venues rang up $6.33 million in June alone — nearly double the $3.27 million the four genuine bars and restaurants in the top 10 pulled in together.

So which spot is actually the highest-grossing bar?

Strip out the hotels, the resort, and the arena, and the real title goes to Ojos Locos Sports Cantina, a Tex-Mex sports-bar chain on I-35 in North Austin known for wall-to-wall TVs, tacos, and cold beer — $1,265,752 in June, good for #3 metro-wide overall. That's more than every named bar on 6th Street or Rainey Street individually, and it did it from a strip-center address most tourists never see.

Runner-up among true bars: Inn Cahoots on East 6th Street, at $819,579 — the highest-grossing spot on Austin's most famous bar strip, but still well behind the sports cantina on the interstate.

Which Austin neighborhood actually wins on bar revenue?

East 6th Street doesn't have June's single biggest bar, but it dominates by volume. Seven of the metro's top 30 venues sit on East 6th Street alone, combining for $3.37 million in June — more than the Domain's Rock Rose strip and South Congress combined:

Texas Comptroller mixed-beverage receipts, June 2026.

For comparison, Rainey Street placed just one venue in the metro's top 30 (Victory Lap Rainey Street, $429,051); the Domain's Rock Rose strip placed two (Rose Room/77 Degrees and Little Woodrow's, $784,983 combined); and South Congress placed two (ABA Austin and Pins Mechanical Co., $765,344 combined). By sheer number of venues clearing the metro's upper ranks, East 6th is still the strip to beat.

Which venues grew the fastest this year — and which cratered?

Comparing April–June 2026 to the same three months in 2025 (a trailing window, which smooths out any single big-event spike) surfaces the metro's real movers. Out of 1,243 venues with a complete, comparable filing history in both windows, the two biggest dollar swings both belong to venues named "Moody" — and they moved in opposite directions.

Texas Comptroller mixed-beverage receipts, trailing 3 months ending June 2026 vs. the same months in 2025.

Moody Center, the UT arena, posted the single biggest dollar gain in the entire metro — a 404.6% jump that lines up with its stacked spring 2026 arena calendar: Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, Dave Matthews Band, Florence + the Machine, Stevie Nicks, Peso Pluma, the iHeartCountry Festival, and Ariana Grande all played the room between April and June, according to the venue's own event listings.

Also worth watching: Emo's East, the East Riverside concert venue, posted the metro's second-largest dollar gain ($2.84M, +525.8%), and a smaller room, East End Ballroom on E 5th Street, posted the single highest percentage gain of any eligible venue (+530.8%) off a small base.

Which bars are struggling the most?

The decline side of the ledger is less discussed than the winners, but it's arguably more newsworthy:

Texas Comptroller mixed-beverage receipts, trailing 3 months ending June 2026 vs. the same months in 2025.

The steepest fall belongs to Scoot Inn, the East 4th Street concert venue, down 90.5% year-over-year — from $1.9 million to $180,465. Public event listings still show Scoot Inn booking shows into 2026 and 2027, so nothing in this data says the venue has closed; the receipts simply show a dramatically lighter spring than a year ago, and we're not going to guess at a cause the filings themselves don't show. Levy at Austin FC's -62% at Q2 Stadium and the near-identical stadium-concessions dip at UT's Mike A. Myers Stadium both likely reflect normal schedule variance between the two spring windows rather than anything structural — sports and stadium concessions revenue swings hard with how many home dates fall inside a given quarter.

What locals should know

• "Highest-grossing" means the state's own tax filings, not a vibe check. Hotels, resorts, arenas, and stadium concessionaires all file the same mixed-beverage return as a corner bar, so they show up in the same leaderboard.
• June 2026 is the freshest complete month available — Comptroller filings run about a month behind, so July's numbers won't be stable until early September.
• Revenue swings say nothing about quality. A gain or decline here can come from one blockbuster tour date as easily as a real trend — that's exactly why we compared three-month windows, not single months, for the movers above.
• Curious who's building near any of these addresses? Zabalist's construction-projects database lets you pull permit history for any Austin-metro property.

Method & sources

Primary source: Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts mixed-beverage gross receipts tax data, dataset naix-2893 on data.texas.gov, queried directly via the Comptroller's public Socrata API. Geographic scope: Austin-area cities across Travis, Williamson, and Hays counties. Leaderboard: single-month totals for June 2026 (obligation_end_date within that period), restricted to the 2,015 venues that are currently and actively reporting (no gap longer than three months). Movers: trailing three-month totals, April–June 2026 vs. April–June 2025, restricted to the 1,243 venues with a complete, comparable filing history in both windows and at least $50,000 in prior-year receipts, so a venue's first month in business can't register as an infinite percentage gain. Every dollar figure in this report traces to that same pull; nothing here is averaged, annualized, or projected. Moody Center's and Moody Amphitheater's spring 2026 event calendars are drawn from each venue's own public listings, cited where used.

Related: explore the full, live leaderboard yourself at austintexasthings.com/bars · East 6th Street's own bar guide: East 6th Street bars · Scholz Garten turns 160, a look at the other end of Austin's bar-revenue spectrum · track the metro's broader numbers at austintexasthings.com/economy.

FAQ

What is Austin's highest-grossing bar in 2026? By June 2026 Texas Comptroller mixed-beverage receipts, the metro's single highest-grossing venue was Kalahari Resort in Round Rock ($1.43M), though it's a resort, not a bar. Among stand-alone bars, Ojos Locos Sports Cantina on I-35 topped the list at $1,265,752.

How much do Austin bars make per month? Across the 2,015 Austin-area venues that filed and reported for June 2026, the average was about $59,445 in mixed-beverage receipts, though the range is enormous — from just over $1.4 million at the top down to a few hundred dollars at the smallest reporting locations.

Which Austin bar neighborhood makes the most money? By number of high-earning venues, East 6th Street leads: seven of the metro's top 30 grossing spots sit on that one street, combining for $3.37 million in June 2026 — more than Rainey Street, the Domain's Rock Rose strip, and South Congress combined.

Where does this bar revenue data come from? It's pulled directly from the Texas Comptroller's mixed-beverage gross receipts tax filings (dataset naix-2893), which every bar, restaurant, and hotel that sells liquor by the drink in Texas must file monthly. It's public record, and ATX Things tracks it live at austintexasthings.com/bars.